# On Realistic Target Coverage by Autonomous Drones

## TL;DR

This paper introduces Argus, an autonomous drone system with a novel geometric model for efficient target coverage, addressing key visual sensing challenges and minimizing drone usage through approximation algorithms and heuristics.

## Contribution

The paper presents Argus, a new system with a geometric model for target coverage, and provides approximation algorithms and heuristics to optimize drone deployment.

## Key findings

- Argus reduces the number of drones needed for coverage.
- The approximation algorithm outperforms baseline methods in simulations.
- Prototype implementation demonstrates practical feasibility.

## Abstract

Low-cost mini-drones with advanced sensing and maneuverability enable a new class of intelligent sensing systems. To achieve the full potential of such drones, it is necessary to develop new enhanced formulations of both common and emerging sensing scenarios. Namely, several fundamental challenges in visual sensing remain unsolved including: 1) Fitting sizable targets in camera frames; 2) Effective viewpoints matching target poses; 3) Occlusion by elements in the environment, including other targets. In this paper, we introduce Argus: an autonomous system that utilizes drones to incrementally collect target information through a two-tier architecture. To tackle the stated challenges, Argus employs a novel geometric model that captures both target shapes and coverage constraints. Recognizing drones as the scarcest resource, Argus aims to minimize the number of drones required to cover a set of targets. We prove this problem is NP-hard, and even hard to approximate, before deriving a best-possible approximation algorithm along with a competitive sampling heuristic which runs up to 100x faster according to large-scale simulations. To test Argus in action, we demonstrate and analyze its performance on a prototype implementation. Finally, we present a number of extensions to accommodate more application requirements and highlight some open problems.